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OEATION, 



DSLITEKED OM IHK 






e 



1849. 



AT CHESTER VILLAGE, MASS 



ARTHUR McARTBDR/tSO.tf iOSTON, 



I v.. ••^ ^• 

SPRINGFIELD: 

GEORGE W. WILSON, BOOK, JOB k ORNAMENTAL PRINTER. 



1849 



PEEFATORir CORRESPONDENCE. 



Chester Village, Mass., July 7, 1849, 
My Dear Sir : 

The Oration with which you favored us on the ^Glorious 
Fourth' entertained all who heard it so deeply, and those who, 
from their position or other causes, could not have the pleasure 
of Ustening to it, feel so disappointed, that our ' Committee of 
Arrangements ' for the late Celebration, request me to beg that 
you will indulge their desire to possess a copy of it for purposes 
of publication. 

Certain that you will, at your earliest convenience, comply 
with our earnest wishes, I remain 

Yours, very truly and respectfully, 

A. C. NELSON. 
To Arthur McArthub, Esa., Boston. 



REPLY. 

Boston, July 14, 1849. 
My Dear Sir: 

Your polite note of the 7th instant did not reach me till 
Thursday last, and I now comply with your request therein, to 
furnish a copy of the address dehvered by me on the ' Glorious 
Fourth' in your village. 

In doing so permit me gratefully to acknowledge the kind 
terms of your note, and to subscribe myself 

Very truly yours, 

ARTHUR McARTHUR. 
A. C. Nelson, Esq,., Chester Village. 



ORATION 



Friends and Fellow Citizens : 

The most extraordinary periods recorded in history, 
are the struggles of the oppressed to be free. The 
most remarkable examples of virtue, of heroism, and 
fortitude, have been displayed in defence of human 
rights. These rights have been contended for against 
kings, and tyrants, and despot governments, and bar- 
barous institutions ; against learning, and talents, and 
power ; with the press, with the tongue, with the sword, 
and on the battle field. 

Men have poured out their bh od, and laid down 
their life in defence of human rights. And this warfare 
between right and wrong, between Despotism and 
Freedom, has marked almost every age, and been 
witnessed in almost every country. And yet, previous 
to the commencement of our own simple, but subhme 
history, how slow had been the progress of rational 
liberty ! Notwithstanding the generous exploits of the 
brave, the bold, and the free ; notwithstanding the 
sacrifice of blood and treasure which had distinguished 
every period of the controversy ; history clearly ex- 
hibits, that both, nations and individuals, had been 
1* 



deprived of their most important rights and privileges. 
The institutions of the past had been partial in their 
operations, or destructive in their results. In all the 
recorded history of time, the common and equal Hu- 
manity of our race had never been recognized and 
acted upon as the national idea of a whole people. 
Indeed, the national ideas of states had been limited 
and selfish, so as to build up birth and station, and 
accommodate caste and class. There had been no 
system embracing humanity, until the Declaration of 
American Independence — that immortal document, 
which again, on this return of Freedom's Jubilee, has 
been read in your presence and hearing, and which we 
are justly taught to venerate from our first to our latest 
breath. 

It was then, and in that sacred instrument, pro- 
claimed, that all men are created free and equal ; that 
government is instituted for the benefit of the gov- 
erned, and that it is the right of the people to change 
both ruler and government, when they become subver- 
sive of the public welfiire. 

The experience and the blessings of seventy-three 
years have made us familiar with those exalted truths ; 
but when our revolutionary ancestry proclaimed them, 
the world was bewildered at the sublime spectacle. It 
was so novel ! Nay, it was a romantic thing, to hear 
a whole nation uttering such great truths ! It was 
then, for the first time, that the common and equal 
rights of mankind were adopted as the great National 
Idea of America. It was then, for the first time, that 
an entire people embraced and acted upon those great 
principles of justice and equity, which, running hori- 



zontally through the concerns of morals and politics, 
swerve neither to the right nor to the left, to answer 
the selfish interests of the few, or to trample on the 
sacred rights of the many; but which, with the most 
gratifying processes, raise up the oppressed and down- 
trodden, and bring down to a universal platform, those 
who, for selfish purposes, had been elevated above a 
rational standard of humanity. Such was the grand 
philosophy, and the lofty design of our fathers ; to the 
success of which, appealing to the God of nations for 
the rectitude of their motives, they pledged their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honor. 

Noble and illustrious men ! Your great names, and 
your great deeds, shall be venerated by all the gene- 
rations who shall dwell upon the broad and beautiful 
continent, to which you gave freedom and indepen- 
dence ! 

The principles to which I have just adverted, were 
not however to be vindicated alone by the pen and the 
tongue. Their progress had been slow; they had made 
their way in the world only through the lapse of inter- 
minable centuries ; and even in the days of our Revo- 
lution, they had to be vindicated by trials of fire, through 
years of war, covered with smoke, and drenched in 
blood. The colonists were however reluctant to resort 
to this direful aUernative. Again and again did they 
recite their catalogue of grievances in petition and 
memorial. Peaceful remonstrance at length became 
exhausted, and the result proves that they were as 
terrible in arms as they had previously been humble in 
supplication. The arm which they had so long lifted 
in unheeded appeal, was now raised with all the energy 



8 

and wielded with all the force which could nerve it in 
a generous cause. But it is not my design to enter 
upon the details of the Revolutionary struggle, nor to 
enlarge upon the heroic valor which has shed upon it 
an imperishable lustre. It proceeded ; battle followed 
battle, diversified with victory and disaster ; year suc- 
ceeded year in the arduous contest, alternated by the 
swelling aspirations of hope, and the gloomy forebod- 
ings of fear. Its blood-stained records were, however, 
at the end of seven years, completed, and the battle of 
Yorktown was the last field of sacrifice, and the crown- 
ing glory of military achievement. Americans had now 
redeemed the pledges which they had uttered to Great 
Britain and to the world, in their declaration of politi- 
cal independence. 

Let us pause for a moment to contemplate one of the. 
grandest spectacles of that great drama. The war was 
closed. The country was exhausted ; without means, 
without revenue, overwhelmed with debt, and assailed 
on every hand by the clamors of the public creditor. 
Such was the condition of Government. There stood 
the heroic army, who had endured the sufferings and 
fought the battles of the war. How should they be 
paid ? Large arrears were due to both officers and 
men ; and the question comes up, how shall these be 
discharged ? Many of them had risked their all, and 
generously devoted their fortunes to the struggle ; and 
a great portion of them have nothing to depend upon 
for the subsistence of their families, but their lawful 
and hard-earned claims upon the country. They ask 
and demand their pay ; but Congress, without the 
means, are unable to comply. And now, when delay 





has filled the soldiers' mind with discontent, and exas- 
perated the temper, an incendiary appeal is made to 
the army, and circulated through their ranks, exhorting" 
them never to part with their arms, or separate from 
their companions, until they have extorted that by force 
from the fears of the Government, which its perverted 
sense of justice has so long refused. We have seen the 
Roman armies trample upon the liberties of which they 
were the sworn conservators ; we have seen Cromwell 
and his soldiers enter the British Parliament, and ex- 
pelling the representatives of the people, convert the 
free Commonwealth of England into a despotism, and 
its Protector into a usurper. In more modern days, 
we have ourselves, many of us, seen the soldiers of 
Napoleon erect the colossal power of their imperial 
captain on the ruins of a republic. What then shall be 
the conduct of the American army ? Do they threaten, 
by such brute force, to compel remuneration for their 
toils, or to take possession of authority, and keep down 
the nation by force of arms ? They have won battles ; 
they have conquered armies ; and subdued the national 
enemy. They still wear those weapons — the compan- 
ions of their glory — and while they have the power in 
their own hands, shall they not help themselves to that 
which had been delayed so long ? The temptations of 
self-interest, and the dazzling enchantments of ambi- 
tion allure to such courses ; but in vain. The army 
does nothing to compromise their illustrious character. 
Having been faithful to the country, they will now sig- 
nally show that they will be true to their own honor. 
Those arms, the elements of their power, are yielded 
to that country they have so long defended. They 



10 

address the parting word to each other, and retiring 
to their distant homes, dissipate forever that power 
which sprung from their union. And in this, their last 
great act, they add to history one of the most remark- 
able examples of virtue and patriotism — an army vic- 
torious over their enemies, victorious over themselves. 
Let the surpassing narrative flow onward, in unfading 
memory ; and whenever, in all coming time, mihtary 
ambition would fain trample upon popular liberty, may 
this example be effectually invoked for guidance and 
protection ! 

When the Independence of America was acknow- 
ledged by the general consent of mankind, and when 
peace had terminated the terrible conflict of arms, 
Humanity had achieved one of her most brilUant vic- 
tories. Those years of strife, among the obscure and 
almost powerless colonies, were not for themselves 
alone, but for all time, and for the whole family of man. 
They gave an impulse to human hopes, and opened for 
them a boundless career in the progress of our race. 
And was it not strange indeed, that those stripling com- 
munities, who dwelt in the small towns and hamlets of 
the New World, and who were scattered through the 
forests, and lived in the huts and log-houses of the 
wilderness, should be among the first to teach the able 
statesmen and the imperial governments of the civilized 
world, the importance of those political rights, and the 
sacredness of those political truths which are the dear- 
est heritage of man ? The influence of their example, 
together with the principles which they upheld, even 
down to the present moment, continue to quicken 
thought into activity, and as the march of Time moves 



11 

onward from that era, the shouts of popular progress 
which they mingled with the clanking of their armor, 
is now heard revived from the watch-towers of Free- 
dom, pealing over the fallen thrones of Europe. The 
people of the old World, after the lapse of three- 
quarters of a century, are sending back their answer 
to the Declaration of American Independence. God 
grant that that answer sound in the haughty ear of des- 
potism the knell of its usurpation ! 

The struggle which ended with the American Revo- 
lution, was a struggle for Liberty. The remarkable 
race of men who had been the actors in its awful reali- 
ties, regarded liberty as the greatest earthly blessing of 
a nation. They estimated the privileges and institutions 
of Freedom, as constituting the true grandeur of a com- 
munity. Experience, however, that unerring criterion 
by which every system must either fall or stand, teaches 
us, that opinion and principle are the springs of autho- 
rity and government in a State of enlightened freedom. 
The institutions peculiar to a free state, depending as 
they do upon moral ideas, are slow in their progress. 
It may not be unprofitable to pause for a moment upon 
a striking illustration. Take, for example, a subject 
living under an absolute government. He is taken care 
of by his rulers, but after such a manner as to leave him 
nothing worth the caring for. They give him his reli- 
gious and political faith ; they select his pursuits and 
occupations. His mind is not permitted to expand by 
free enquiry, and his voice is never raised in the noble 
accents of free speech. It would be easy to predict 
what would be the current of such a being's life. Re- 
duced to the condition of a vegetable, with the chief de- 



12 

lights of existence unenjoyed, his Hfe, hke a dull, slug- 
gish, smooth stream, flows ever onward, amidst a waste 
and a soHtude, without a ripple, to the great ocean of 
eternity. The advance from such a state to one of ra- 
tional and enlightened freedom, must necessarily be 
gradual. Regard, on the other hand, the citizen of a 
free government, and mark the contrast. He takes care 
of himself, and is able to do it. He not only selects his 
rehgious and political faith, but he changes them at 
pleasure, according to his interests or convictions. His 
pursuits are various ; and from the humblest to the most 
exalted, from the most private to the most public, from 
the obscurest to those who are surrounded by the most 
dazzling influences of social or political position, he may 
freely pass, according to his abilities and desires. His 
interests are various, and for them he contends with his 
fellow citizens. Thus exercising all his faculties, the 
whole man is developed, and, living in the constant en- 
joyment of his natural rights, his soul is expanded and 
enlarged to a rational size, by the duties and dignity of 
his position. His voice is heard unfettered and potent, 
wherever he chooses to raise it. The practical cause 
of this difference between the citizen of a free govern- 
ment and the subject of an absolute one, is this : that 
the former is controlled by a moral force system of go- 
vernment, and the latter, by a physical force system. 
Now these two, the moral and physical force systems, 
pervade and act upon the moral and political world, in 
precisely the same manner that attraction and repulsion 
act upon and pervade the physical world. The physi- 
cal force system, like attraction, is constantly contract- 
ing, condensing, and diminishing men's souls into pig- 



13 

mies, and making them crawl into mouse holes. The 
moral force system, like repulsion, is forever expanding, 
enlarging, and dilating the soul into new fields of use- 
fulness, and a conscious apprehension of its own impor- 
tance and prerogatives. Now, the interval between 
these two positions is immense ; and so gradual has 
been the passage from the one to the other, that it has 
taken about six thousand years to accomplish it. The 
improved institutions of rational liberty grow into deve- 
lopement, by the aid of past experience, and the exam- 
ples of preceding time. Indeed, they can never be es- 
tablished fully, until invoked by superior valor and in- 
telligence ; and they can only be preserved by patriotism 
and public virtue. Macintosh has therefore truly said, 
that '■political institutions grow, they are not made.'' There 
is profound philosophy in the remark. It is the true 
secret of the origin of our political institutions ; for they 
have grown ; they have been growing since the planting 
of the colonies. It is a great mistake to suppose that 
our poUtical institutions had date and beginning with the 
Revolution. That event only marked a period in their 
progress, and the glorious era of their independence. 
The seeds from which they sprung had, long before that 
time, been planted in the back woods of Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and good old Massachusetts. They date 
from the arrival of the Mayflower, and the landing of 
the pilgrims in the snow-clad wilderness, on the flinty 
rocks of Plymouth. If, in the old world, the rights of 
conscience were subverted, the persecuted fled to the 
new one, bringing with them emancipation and free 
thought. If political collision occurred between the old 
governments, and the friends of human improvement, 
2 



14 

the latter escaped to swell the new settlements of 
America. The first colonies were planted by those who, 
fleeing from bigotry, persecution, and the restraints of 
arbitrary power, came hither to find new homes, to erect 
the hearth and the altar in a free land, and, should 
need demand, to water with their blood the sacred tree 
of liberty. These influences, in their gradual action, 
built up free institutions, which, in their natural growth, 
deeply imbued the mind of the people with the princi- 
ples of rational freedom. It would not however be fair 
to deny, that perhaps the greatest' portion of the early 
settlers did not entertain that enlarged sense of civil 
liberty, which comprehends religious freedom. By their 
acts they appeared to repudiate a liberal toleration of 
theological doctrines and opinions. There were those 
among them, however, who had adopted the glorious 
maxims of toleration. The early annals of the colonies 
are replete with the struggles between these two. And 
the friends of freedom, in religious as well as civil polity, 
proved themselves, in these controversies, among the 
ablest advocates that ever upheld the grand doctrines of 
religious freedom. Civil liberty and religious despotism 
cannot subsist together. The one is right, the other is 
wrong. You can no more reconcile right and wrong 
than you can harmonize fire and water. Wrong must 
perish in the unequal contest. It perished in this con- 
flict, and right surviving has continued to bless us, by 
making us all perfectly free and perfectly equal. 

As a general thing, however, the regulations and 
prosperity of the colonies were founded in freedom. 
This was the natural growth of their age and circum- 
stances. Fortunately divided by the tempest and the 



15 

ocean from the piercing eye and the rude inspection of 
tyranny, the process of growth went onward, until it 
could not be stopped. Liberal ideas of government 
became firmly fixed on the virgin soil. Almost a cen- 
tury before the Revolution, Massachusetts had acquired 
her charter of liberties, including popular representa- 
tion in the General Court ; the right of the people to 
choose their own Governors ; the trial by jury ; habeas 
corpus ; together with no small degree of freedom of 
speech, and shortly afterwards, of the press. The 
spirit of freedom and independence was also nourished 
into strength and maturity on the plantations of Vir- 
ginia. Nor was New York long behind her two sisters. 
Her legislative power resided in a Governor and Gene- 
ral Assembly, chosen by the people. Every freeman 
voted for representatives, without restraint ; trial by 
jury of twelve men ; no tax to be assessed on any pre- 
tence whatever, but by the consent of the Assembly ; 
no quarttering soldiers on the inhabitants ; no martial 
law ; and no person professing faith in God, to be 
questioned for any difference of opinion — such were 
the liberties claimed by the people of that colony, which 
has since marched by giant strides to the acknowledged 
title of the Empire State. 

In Pennsylvania, the General Assembly was chosen 
by the ballot box, every man being capable to vote or 
be elected ; Justices chosen by the people ; Judges 
appointed by the Assembly ; every man to be free from 
oppression and slavery, and no man to be imprisoned 
for debt. Rhode Island and Connecticut presented the 
strange spectacle of pure and absolute Democracies, 
under the shadows of Royal Charters. 



16 

I make these selections from among many evidences 
of a similar character, in order to show that, at the 
close of the seventeenth century, and shortly after- 
wards, the work of reform had commenced. The 
noblest ideas of human progress were kindling the 
mind with the generous impulses of freedom ; and the 
foundations of those institutions were begun, which are 
now the boast of the Repubhc, and the best heritage of 
her children. 

Institutions grow, they are not made. It was in vain 
that the kings of England attempted to check this 
growth. It was in vain that the second James revoked 
the charters of some of the colonies, and sent forth his 
hireling satraps, to make laws, to levy taxes, and to 
sequester the liberties of the people. It was in vain 
that subsequent monarchs and parliaments sent forth 
royal Governors, covered all over with gems and scar- 
let, accompanied by armed men, to make the colonies 
subject to the crown, and submissive to the purposes 
of English administration. Like Saturn of old, the 
mother country undertook to devour her children, but 
they, by the combined intelligence and importance of 
the people, outgrew and over-mastered her. It was in 
vain that England undertook to make institutions for 
her obstinate provinces. John Locke, one of the great- 
est of English philosophers, drafted a constitution for 
the colony of North Carolina. It instituted castes and 
classes, with a titled nobility, Landgraves, Palatinates, 
Caciques and what not ! It was so complete and beau- 
tiful a theory, that he thought all his other writings 
would sink into insignificance, and this alone would 
carry his name in unfading memory to all future ages. 



17 

But alas for the dreams of the philosopher ! the people 
of North Carolina paid no attention to Locke's Consti- 
tution. He might as well have undertaken to establish 
it in a community of foxes and racoons and wild cats. 
Democracy was the natural growth of America, and 
the people continued to hold their public meetings in a 
simple, democratic way, settling their affairs on the 
principles of equity and justice. Institutions could not 
be made for them, they were growing. It was not a 
titled nobility that was wanted ; it was deliverance from 
bondage and oppression ; it was freedom of mind, of 
opinion, and universal equality. The historian remarks, 
in relation to this Constitution, that so little was it con- 
nected with the vital interests of the state, that history 
with difficulty preserves it from oblivion. 

But I have said that England could not make insti- 
tutions for her American colonies. With pain and 
melancholy, let me for a moment retract the assertion, 
and point out at least one exception. She did succeed 
in making one institution, and one which still subsists, 
in all its ' gigantic character of crime ; ' and it is owing 
to this that we have, on this, the national Sabbath of 
our freedom, to mourn the existence of one-sixth of 
our population in a state of helpless bondage. Our 
declaration of human rights, with its self-evident truths, 
was practically inefficient to enfranchize the enslaved 
negro, so firmly fixed had become his hapless lot, under 
the policy of the mother country. 

In the latter part of the sixteenth century, England, 

under the protection of her own laws, sent forth her 

slave-ships, to steal Africans, and bring them to * supply 

the Plantations.' This work of rapine and crime was 

2* 



18 

called a Trade. The horrid work of selling negroes 
was called Commerce. The coast of Africa, wherever 
the wretched captives were received by the slaver, was 
denominated a Market; and the Jurists of England, 
with a prodigality of legal wickedness, converted ' ne- 
groes into merchandize.' The vocabulary in which Av- 
arice enumerates her treasures, was extended to human 
beings, that they might the more easily be degraded to 
the level of beasts and things. A monopoly in this 
horrid traffic, was granted for some time to the famous 
South Sea and African Companies ; and finally, to 
stimulate the trade to the greatest activity of promis- 
cuous plunder, the monopolies were revoked, and all 
Enghshmen were invited to enter freely upon the bar- 
barous and inhuman competition. The Governors sent 
out by the English monarchs to rule the colonies, had 
their instructions to encourage the slave-merchant, and 
to promote the infernal traffic in men. Every restric- 
tion upon the increasing importations of these children 
of misfortune, was removed. The people were not 
allowed to check the evil, although they contemplated 
its rapid increase with fear and abhorrence. 

The whole power and tendency of English legisla- 
tion for nearly a century, protected and fostered the 
growth of colonial slavery ; and for nearly all that 
time, the abstract question of right was not even pro- 
pounded by her statesmen and successive administra- 
tions. The colonies opposing the African slave-trade, 
multiplied laws, with the design of restricting its im- 
portations of misery and affliction. But England was 
to be moved from her inexorable purpose neither by 
entreaty, nor colonial legislation. The days of her 



19 



self-sacrificing virtue were not then anticipated. The 
demands of her commerce and manufactures were par- 
amount in importance, and dictated her laws. The 
proceeds of the slave-trade gratified the passion of her 
merchants for wealth, and the introduction of the col- 
ored man into her colonies, enlarged the market for 
the sale of the fabrics of her manufacturers. She suc- 
ceeded in her perfidious design, and slavery became an 
American institution. The final consequences of this 
monstrous wrong are yet in the unknown mysteries of 
the future. Let us trust, that althongh we might justly 
reckon upon severe judgments, yet that Heaven will so 
order the removal of the evil, as to preserve the Union 
of this happy country, and the stability of this glorious 
government. 

In other respects, England could not suppress the 
growing liberties of the colonies ; nor could she super- 
sede them by aristocratic forms of government ; and it 
only required a certain degree of British tyranny and 
taxation, to rouse the people to declare that they should 
henceforth be an independent nation of freemen. That 
Declaration, in the fulness of time, went forth, and the 
world entered upon a new epoch. ., ' 

I have thus traced the true origin of bur political 
institutions ; and I have done so purposely, for if we 
understand their origin, we shall more fully appreciate 
their value, and devise the means of their preservation. 
As they were reared in tribulations, and sufferings, and 
sacrifices ; as they were moistened with the tears, and 
cemented with the blood of a martyred ancestry ; so 
they must be maintained by vigilance and public virtue. 
It were vain for us to put an idolatrous trust in them, 



20 

as if, by some magic power, they would be preserved 
from corruption, even without our aid. As we find that 
they were the offspring of pubHc and private intelHgence 
among the people, we may rest assured that the same 
noble bulwark is their only sure protection. Now it is 
the glory of Massachusetts, and it is a glory which she 
is proud to share with many of her sister States, that 
she has adopted and extended this means of preserving 
freedom. She recognizes and discharges the sacred 
duty of educating her children. With a parental arm, 
the Commonwealth plants the Common School, and 
sustains it with munificent endowments. 

There is nothing more gratifying, in the infancy of 
the American colonies, than the pious zeal which the 
early forefathers displayed in furnishing the means of 
education. They came in successive multitudes from 
the shores of Europe They came, for the most part, 
voluntary exiles, not poor, and abandoned, and igno- 
rant ; for among them were the wealthy, the well-born, 
ripe scholars, and philosophers, bringing with them, to 
the unreclaimed wilderness, all the intellectual influ- 
ences peculiar to the highest advances of refinement 
and learning. They came here entertaining the grand- 
est designs of human progress. Yearning for a better 
condition of things, for a purer state of society, and for 
freer forms of government, they crossed the dismal 
ocean. As the best means of carrying out these ex- 
alted hopes and aspirations, it was their earliest care to 
promote learning. The importance of teaching know- 
ledge, they regarded as exceedingly precious both to 
religion and liberty, as well as to all the other high 
objects which sustained them in their new homes. 



21 

The church and the school-house grew up together ; 
nor was it long before the classic shades of the college 
presented their invitations to those who would spend 
their time in the studies of philosophy, learning, and 
Religion. And thus was education woven into the 
texture of our political existence ; and thus did it be- 
come one of the great national ideas of America. 

The progress of liberal ideas, and the advance of 
humanity to the high destinies designed for it by the 
Creator, are vitally connected with the education of the 
people. We are nearly unanimous on the point that 
the people should be educated ; and the citizens of this 
state have responded to this sentiment, in a manner 
worthy of their high descent ; for year after year they 
voluntarily consent to tax themselves by the million, 
for the support of the school-house and the educator. 
The God of Heaven, in his universal beneficence, has 
endowed each human being with a portion of his own 
celestial genius. This sacred fire has been given us to 
preserve us from error and ignorance, and to enlighten 
us in regard to our duties and interests. It is only by 
cultivating it, that we can keep alive its serene flame. 
If neglected, it expires in the black darkness of igno- 
rance, leaving us a prey to all the destructive miseries 
of life. Knowledge purchased at any price, is the 
cheapest and surest defence of a nation. All history is 
full of the terrible lessons taught by ignorance. It is 
the prolific source of most of those evils from which 
spring the prejudices and superstitions of the mind, 
which bind it in a bondage more degrading than that of 
the chain or the lash. From it proceeds the want of 
human industry, and the indolence which ruins both 



22 



individuals and nations. To illustrate this, take one or 
two examples, selected from a superabundance of the 
same kind. There is a desert plain in Italy, seventy 
miles wide, and two hundred and thirty miles long. It 
is called the Campagna Di Roma. Throughout its 
extent, a tree is seldom visible. It is destitute of towns 
or villages, with only here and there a rude hut, the 
solitary habitation of the wandering herdsmen ; half- 
wild cattle pasture upon its noxious solitudes ; and their 
keepers usually fall a prey to its pestilential vapors 
and malignant fevers. Its few wretched inhabitants, 
during the summer months, fill the hospitals of Rome, 
or take refuge in the adjacent neighborhoods. It is a 
desert waste, given up to pestilence, disease, and death. 
Over the face of this fearful desolation, are the scat- 
tered fragments of ruined towers, and temples, and 
circuses, and monuments, and aqueducts, overgrown 
by rank weeds and plants. And yet, this dreary waste, 
in the days of the ancient Romans, was celebrated as 
the loveliest spot, the very garden of Italy. The fer- 
tility of its soil, the beauty of its climate, and the 
abundance and richness of its natural productions, 
were favorite themes with the Latin poets and histori- 
ans. Let me quote. A writer, speaking of it says : ' In 
the times of the ancient Romans, this dreary solitude 
exhibited a smiling picture of abundance and fertility. 
Corn-fields, groves, villas, monuments, alternated with 
each other, and according to the accounts of Strabo, 
Varro, and Pliny, the air was remarkably healthy.' It 
was in one of the cities of the Campagna, that the vet- 
eran soldiers of Hannibal were rendered effeminate 
by the surfeit of luxuriant abundance. 



23 

Look on this picture, and then look on that — the 
ancient and modern — and tell me what has produced 
such terrible changes. Alas, such are among the re- 
sults of human ignorance ! The ruins of the common 
school are not to be found beside the scattered frag- 
ments of the temples and the monuments of ancient 
Rome. The masses of her people, without the im- 
proving aid of knowledge, regardless of their own 
welfare, ignorant of the means of promoting it, fell a 
prey to self-indulgence, indolence, and the sure curses 
of idleness. The waters in the beautiful lakes of this 
smiling garden, became stagnant from the want of hu- 
man industry. The evil was permitted to increase. 
The desert superseded the cultivated field, and pesti- 
lence impregnated the balmy atmosphere with death. 
Such, O Ignorance ! are the fearful retributions which 
flow from thy dark and capacious womb, in the turbid 
currents of misery ! 

The Hesperides were, in ancient times, called Gar- 
dens. They abounded with fruit of the most dehcious 
description. They were filled with groves ; their fra- 
grance perfumed the air ; and their orchards bloomed 
with ceaseless luxuriance. The fabled Juno, accord- 
ing to classical mythology, here procured the golden 
apples which she gave to Jupiter in commemoration of 
their nuptials. And yet the modern inhabitants of this 
favored spot, according to a recent writer, ' seldom 
taste bread, but are obliged to rake with their iron 
hooks for a precarious meal, beneath the chestnut tree 
and the oak.' The cold blasts of barbarous ignorance 
have howled through the groves and the fruit trees, 
and blighted the unsheltered exuberance of the earth. 



24 

Even in countries pretended to be highly civilized, 
we shall find a large portion of mankind held, by a 
want of knowledge, to modes of living which we might 
expect to find only among rude and barbarous ages. 
In some parts in the lieart of Europe, the farmer 
smokes his bacon and hams in the same room occupied 
by himself and his family ; and thus they all get smoked 
together ! In other places, the same roof covers both 
the family and the cattle ; the ox drags his burden with 
his horns, and the horse draws the plough with his tail. 
The Spanish peasant, although by a little intelligent 
labor he might gather abundant harvests, stubbornly 
adheres to his loathsome garlic and rancid oil. The 
Russian serf, with blind submission to the barbarous 
usages of his fathers, despising both manure and plough, 
continues to turn the exhausted bosom of his mother 
earth with a harrow. Oh, how accursed is that country 
whose soil is cultivated, or rather abused, by an igno- 
rant and degraded husbandry"! Americans have been 
accused of speaking of their institutions in too boastful 
a spirit ; but when we speak of our common school 
system, we may well challenge the admiration of man- 
kind. We cannot indulge an undue excess of enthusi- 
asm for so sacred an object as informing the mind of a 
whole people. In an especial manner, let the farmers 
of America prove that they are the best friends of the 
Republic, by being the efficient benefactors of this 
great work. Without disparaging the claims of the 
other classes of our society, it must be decided that 
Agriculture is the great Art of America, and that the 
cultivators of the soil are the true conservators of all 
our interests. Let them be free, happy, intelligent and 



25 

prosperous, and the whole land, through every nerve 
and fibre, vibrates to the genial influence. Standing, 
therefore, as he does, the acknowledged peer, the high- 
est and proudest member of_ the community, let him 
bear in mind that he occupies this position only because 
the wonders of science have been used to cultivate his 
mind, as well as his fields ; and that it is this which 
invests his occupation with the dignity of independence. 
Let Education close her seminaries ; let the Instructor 
cease his ministrations at the Altar of Knowledge ; and 
the farmer would not only be the first, but the greatest 
sufi'erer, not only in his physical and civil, but also in 
his moral condition. Without a general system of 
education, there would be no security for the social 
elevation of the husbandman. He would soon dwindle 
into insignificance, and losing every incentive to exer- 
tion, let him read his sure doom in the examples, both 
from ancient and modern times, which I have cited. 
Sloth, indolence, and nnsguided effort, would reduce 
him to oppression, want^ and helpless dependence ; 
and ranking with his fall, would be the ruin of the Re- 
public, and the degradation of the people. Did I not 
say well, that education was the cheapest defence of a 
community ? Look at the enormous and lavish ex- 
penses bestowed on the national defences of the United 
States ; her navies, her armies, her fortifications ; her 
dock-yards, her arsenals, and military stores. How 
vast and exuberant the expenditure for these, her war 
establishments ! But these can only prevent the hostile 
foot of an enemy from pressing the American soil, with 
an enemy's purpose. But there is a foe that cannot be 
repelled by the armaments of war. Subtle, insidious, 



26 

it is the thief which breaks through the bleeding wounds 
in the bosom of humanity, and robs her of the electric 
spark of mental illumination. 

Come forth, Calculation, with thy pen, and I will 
show thee, that Knowledge gives a generous return 
for all that may be expended in her purchase. She 
will return a hundred fold, nay a thousand and ten 
thousand fold, so that those who have experienced her 
blessings will be the most liberal in the gifts which they 
pour upon her altars. Richer is she than the glittering 
treasures of California, without a dangerous ocean to 
cross, and a still more dangerous shape of society to en- 
counter. As generous is she as the sun, which licks up 
the latent moistures of the earth, to pour them in the 
descending shower which 

' Fertilizes the dusty plain.' 

A large and respectable portion of our fellow-citi- 
zens have recently adopted as their maxim, the idea of 
Free Soil. This is a noble idea. It is worthy of the 
age. It is worthy of all the ages. Let me, with all 
deference, inculcate one which transcends it. It is 
that of Free Education. This latter will not only 
make Free Soil, but Free Men. It profits a man not 
so much to tread upon free soil, if his own mind, en- 
chained by ignorance, cannot a^Dpreciate the inestima- 
ble blessing. So it profits a man not so much to be 
created free and equal, if, after his birth, he loses his 
equality, and it is never again galvanized into life and 
action. Let his mind become enlightened, and he can- 
not become enslaved. An enhghtened people cannot 
be subdued. They will always triumph over the mer- ': 
cenary hosts of their enemies. 

W 73 



27 

Nations have usually been distinguished for some 
great leading idea. Thus the national idea of Egypt 
was that of a gloomy, antique grandeur, as exemplified 
in her huge piles and pyramids. That of Greece was 
glory — glory in arts, arms, and literature. That of 
Rome was universal conquest by physical force. And 
so it has been with the great examplers of modern times. 
The national idea of Germany, like that of Egypt, has 
been, until recently, a gloomy, antique grandeur. That 
of France, like Greece, has been glory in arts, arms, and 
philosophy. While Great Britain emulates the example 
of Rome>— conquest and subjugation by the strong arm, 
and the bloody sabre. 

Let America beam forth from her national idea the 
serene light of the age. Free Education — let her record 
it in the topmost line of her national scroll — let her re- 
create it in her statute books — let it shine in her capitols, 
her towns and villages, throughout the interminable ex- 
tent of her vast territories — let her Eagle substitute it 
for the thunder-bolt in his talons, as he soars to the 
regions of the sun ; — and then may we rely upon the 
sure confidence, that American freedom and institutions 
will continue to improve and bless mankind, through all 
the circling periods of an earthly immortality ! 



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